Enforcement of English ruling
Supreme Court order 28 June 2018, HR-2018-1265-A, (case no. 2017/1886), civil case, appeal against order, Deutsche Bank AG (Counsel Olav Fredrik Perland) v. Erik Martin Vik (Counsel Hans Ingvald Stensholdt)
Justices: Bull, Ringnes, Høgetveit Berg, Falch, Endresen
Through an enforceable judgment, a company registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands was ordered to pay a significant amount to a German bank. After the bank had submitted a claim against the company, the latter's shares in a Norwegian IT company had been transferred to its Norwegian sole shareholder, and then on to the sole shareholder's father. The main issue of the case was whether the shares in the IT company should be considered to belong to the debtor, cf. section 7-1 of the Enforcement Act, so that the bank could levy execution on them. The Supreme Court found, contrary to the court of appeal, that the question whether a single creditor could levy execution on an item or right transferred from the debtor to a third party by an invalid transaction should be settled under Norwegian law and that a single creditor may levy execution on assets unlawfully distributed from a limited liability company. The question whether the transfer to the father was a pro forma transaction had to be assessed objectively. Taking this into account, the court of appeal's ruling was based on a too narrow assessment. The court of appeal's ruling was set aside due to error in law.